Overview

Rebelion en la Granja by George Orwell

Un rotundo alegato a favor de la libertad y en contra el totalitarismo. Esta sátira de la Revolución Rusa y el triunfo del estalinismo, escrita en 1945, se ha convertido por derecho propio en un hito de la cultura contemporánea y en uno de los libros más mordaces de todos los tiempos. Ante el auge de los animales de la Granja Solariega, pronto detectamos las semillas del totalitarismo en una organización aparentemente ideal; y en nuestros líderes más carismáticos, la sombra de los opresores más crueles. «Una obra literaria perfecta.» T. S. Eliot ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Animal Farm is the most famous by far of all twentieth-century political allegories. Its account of a group of barnyard animals who revolt against their vicious human master, only to submit to a tyranny erected by their own kind, can fairly be said to have become a universal drama. Orwell is one of the very few modern satirists comparable to Jonathan Swift in power, artistry, and moral authority; in animal farm his spare prose and the logic of his dark comedy brilliantly highlight his stark message. Taking as his starting point the betrayed promise of the Russian Revolution, Orwell lays out a vision that, in its bitter wisdom, gives us the clearest understanding we possess of the possible consequences of our social and political acts.

When I first heard of The Animal Farm, it was a banned book. My father borrowed it secretly from a friend, and I lent it to a friend in similar fashion. I didn&rsquo;t read it until many years later when living in the U.S. I could freely buy a copy and I suddenly understood why the book was banned. I&rsquo;ve read The Animal Farm again and again over the years and I find it poignant, bittersweet, right on target and just plain genius. I wish I could write that way!
At first glance The Animal Farm is just a fable describing how &ldquo;absolute power corrupts absolutely&rdquo;, but it&rsquo;s so much more. The Animal Farm is a political satire that not only describes a specific political system, in this case socialism or communism, but can be extended to totalitarianism since the salient features of the former are definitely present in the latter regardless of the side of the spectrum the government is from.
I find The Animal Farm genius because it starts with a dream, always a dream, that devolves into corruption and power struggles at the top, the exploitation of the masses, and finally the vitriolic disappointment and the realization that you spent your life fighting for a utopia, and describing that process in the way George Orwell did in 1945, which is the date of the first edition of The Animal Farm is simply transcendent; that&rsquo;s being a visionary because the dream finally exploded forty four years later.
For people who live in democratic countries The Animal Farm is a cautionary tale whereas for those who live under oppression it is their very existence become a satire.